Wrestling

John Boyle Finishes as Runner-Up at EIWA Championships

Mar 06, 2016

PRINCETON, N.J. – American University senior captain John Boyle earned a second-place finish at 157 pounds to lead the Eagles at the 2016 Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association Championships, held at Princeton University's Jadwin Gymnasium.

Meanwhile, five other AU wrestlers finished as placewinners, as American placed seventh in the team standings with 63 points.

Boyle, seeded second and ranked 14th in the nation at 157 pounds, finished as the runner-up for the second straight season after dropping a hard-fought 8-3 decision to top-seed Dylan Palacio of Cornell.

"I'm happy for John," said American head coach Teague Moore. "John has earned everything he's achieved in college wrestling. He has gone out like a workman and put the effort out there. Against a very tough weight class, John put himself in the finals as a two-time EIWA runner-up. That's a huge accomplishment considering where he was four years ago with the progress that he's made.

"But John's not done yet—I do feel like our best wrestling can still come out at the national championships, and I believe John believes that. We've got to learn from this, allow it to motivate us and be ready for New York City."

After a tough start to the day, 15th-ranked Terao bounced back in his fifth-place match at 125 pounds, rolling to a 12-2 major decision over Princeton's Pat D'Arcy. With his win, Terao claimed sole possession of first place on the Eagles' career wins list with 126.

Kasunic, who entered the weekend as the seventh seed at 197 pounds, placed fifth after a medical forfeit by fifth-seed Frank Mattiace of Penn. He closed out the weekend with a 3-2 record that included a pair of first-period falls.

Page, who entered the tournament unseeded at 149 pounds, finished sixth after battling to a 4-3 tiebreaker loss to fourth-seeded Steven Galiardo of Brown. While initially tied 2-2 at the end of the tiebreaker, an officials' review awarded Galiardo a takedown with 10 seconds on the clock. While Page was able to score an escape in the replay, he couldn't come up with a takedown to get the win.

Wightman, seeded fifth at 165 pounds, also lost a close decision in the fifth-place match, dropping a 3-2 decision to Army West Point's Andrew Mendel. While Wightman led 2-1 to start the third period, Mendel scored a takedown that Wightman was unable to escape.

With his second-place finish, Boyle earned an automatic bid to the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships, which will be held March 17-19 at Madison Square Garden in New York. The rest of the Eagles will await the announcement of the NCAA at-large qualifiers, which will be released on Wednesday, March 9, along with the full tournament brackets.

"We didn't get the results that we came for today," said Moore. "I'm happy that we had six placewinners. That's good and that's a step forward, but being able to earning those automatic qualification spots would have been big.

"Now we've got to go home and hope that five more guys can get at-large bids. It's out of our hands at this point, so all we can do is hope for the best."